High-Tech PR Blog >> Beyond the Hype

Keeping it clean

Earlier this week, LP&P collaborated with Xconomy on a podcast with several participants in the 4th Annual Conference on Clean Energy. In the podcast, host Wade Roush asked the participants about the state of VC funding in the sector as well as their thoughts on what an Obama or McCain win means for clean tech. You can give it a listen here.

UPDATE 11/3:  Wade Roush published a post on Xconomy this morning with the podcast.

Things that Go Bump in the Day

My 15-year-old has been watching the marathon of "The Simpsons" TreeHouse of Horror episodes for days now.  My spin instructor started his class this week with the theme from Halloween and ended it with Michael Jackson's Thriller.  I saw a house the other night that was lit up with orange (and my husband swears pink) lights, as well as jack-o-lanterns and other Halloween decorations.  People are certainly doing Halloween big these days.  It's fun for the kids, including the big kids. Our Boston office annually holds a contest between the four quads for who has the most creative costumes and decorations when we have our own party and trick-or-treating for employees' kids.

But it isn't the costumes or horror flicks that scare me these days.  PR people have different fears:

The late night phone call from a client contact reporting that the CEO accidentally leaked the announcement we've been planning for months.

The call from a journalist who keeps a tickler file and wants to know why she has not seen anything more about the new product that was supposed to be generally available by the end of this month.

The news that a prospect who planned to only talk to two other firms now has been forced to open up the search and is sending an 8-page RFP to 25 agencies.

A client telling us they need to pull the plug at the last minute on an announcement after weeks of pre-briefing analysts and press.

A renegade executive spokesperson who gives a quote to a major daily publication and then tells his PR team to have the quote “tweaked” after it hits.

Hearing a spokesperson say, "Now, the next thing I am going to say is off the record."

Securing a great piece of coverage for a client, but find that the reporter spelled the client’s name wrong in print.

An ambiguous meeting request from the most senior client contact or CEO that start with, “Do you have time to talk for 15 minutes this afternoon?  I'll call you."

Living in constant fear that your pitch/e-mail will be torn apart on some enraged reporter’s blog.

Learning a spokesperson just promised an exclusive – to two different reporters.

Corporate executives not showing up for in-person interviews with business press. Or vice versa, reporters not showing up for an interview after your client flew half way across the country to meet with them.

Oh, it is a scary profession.  But we soldier on, bolstered by the knowledge that there will be leftover candy after the kids have all gone home.

A chat with Groundswell author Josh Bernoff

There have been several books written about the impact that social media technologies can have on business, but to date the best I have read is Groundswell by Forrester analyst Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li, formerly of Forrester and now with the Altimeter Group. I had a chance last week to sit down with Josh and ask a few timely questions about the Groundswell.

We are posting this in two parts. Today's podcast talks about leveraging the Groundswell during tough economic times and overcoming executive concerns about embracing social media technologies. On Monday, we'll post a portion of the interview that includes Josh's perspective on how the two presidential candidates have used Groundswell technologies.

We would love your feedback not only on the discussion with Josh, but also on what you think of the book (for those that have read it).

As always, you can subscribe to the podcast series through the Podcast Ready button in the right sidebar, or via iTunes.

Podcast: Shaky economy & IR pitfalls

We are happy to bring you the second part of the conversation between our in-house investor relations expert Christine Simeone and our partners Jane McCahon and Mary Conway of Conway Communications on how companies should think about IR during an economic crisis.  In this part, Christine, Jane and Mary talk about what companies should avoid doing in such a challenging business climate.

In the previous segment, they discussed why companies need to focus now more than ever on the second part of investor relations — the relationships.

As always, you can subscribe to the podcast series through the Podcast Ready button in the right sidebar, or via iTunes.

Refreshing bit of positive commentary

Like many, I've grown weary of the media pig-pile of the last month on the dour economic outlook.  I've personally felt that the IT press and bloggers have been a bit more restrained than financial and mainstream media on the impact of the credit crisis and recessionary pressures.  There's no doubt that companies across numerous industries are making cautionary moves to brace for a difficult market, but in some cases these moves seem to be extreme based upon how the overall economic picture is being portrayed in the media.

I was pleased to see some of my own feelings confirmed to a certain extent by the outlook put forth by George Colony CEO of Forrester.  In a blog post on Sunday, he doesn't deny that we're in for a downturn as he uses the "R" word, but he enumerates why feels like this one will be different than the dot com bust.  One of the key points he makes is that there is not a tech bubble this time, so there won't be precipitous decline in spending like in 2001-2003.  The other major point is that technology is even more pervasive now than even seven years ago, both in terms of how much of companies' operations rely on business technology, as well in how the consumerization of technology have made workers bring many of the technologies they've used personally into companies.  Naturally, George generated a good volume of comments to his post, so it's worth perusing those. 

An implicit message in this post is that there are always opportunities in any weak market.  The smart companies will continue to invest in the right sales and marketing strategies to capture those opportunities.

The Amy Post of Twitterdom

What is proper Twitter etiquette these days?  My colleague Ted Weismann blogged on an aspect to this a while back, specifically related to "following".  After discussions with some of the other Twitter users at the agency, I'm adding some additional rules to the list.  Think of this as “The Amy Post of Twitterdom.”

• If Twitter tells you someone is following you, you don’t have to follow them.  Check their profile to see if their background and specialty would make them valuable to follow.  Also check their Twitter feed to see if they provide relevant information.  If the first screen of “tweets” I see are a series of @thisone and @thatone, I don’t follow them regardless of their background.  I worry that they are Twitter Dwellers who will deluge me with tweets I don’t have time to read.

• Some people send an immediate “tweet” to thank the new follower for choosing their feed.  This is a bit “Eddie Haskell” for my taste [for those of us old enough to remember the smarmy phoney friend of Leave It to Beaver’s brother Wally.]  If Eddie was on Twitter, he’d “tweet” to new followers, “That’s a REALLY nice tweet you just sent, so and so!”

• Don’t say “good morning” and “good night.”  We aren’t working or living together.  I don’t need to know when you log in or out and neither does anyone else.  [If someone is watching your whereabouts online that closely, I’d alert the police that you have a stalker.]

• Don’t over-share.  As much as I am happy that there are many foodies on Twitter who enjoy good meals, I don’t need to hear about every single one of them.  The same goes for exciting trips and vacations.  Unless you can bring enough for the entire class (food, wine or airline tickets), please keep the fun stuff to yourself.

• Don’t overdo the “tweeting.”  Unless you have incredibly brilliant insights or data to share, you should never “tweet” more than once an hour, in my humble opinion.  And perhaps once a day would be enough.  Less is more applies to Twitter the same as it does most other forms of communication.

• Be polite.  Don’t use foul language or make offensive statements or people like me will quickly “unfollow” you. 

• Practice clarity of thought.  If you cannot write a coherent sentence, you shouldn’t be subjecting people to your Twitter feed.  You probably shouldn’t be allowed to write email either.  Get thee to a writing course, fast!

• Don’t write an article using Twitter.  One of the people I follow apologized in advance a few weeks ago, saying she does not have a blog, but had insights she wanted to share and proceeded to do so in 140-character “tweets”  -- about 6-7 of them in succession.  Stephen Baker of BusinessWeek got away with this, in an experiment earlier this year about using Twitter to write an article.  Non-journalist Twitter fans should not try that at home.  It just doesn’t work and will cause someone to “unfollow” you.

In general, Twitter is always interesting reading and can be the source of some really great information that someone else with like interests or views has unearthed and is willing to share.  It also can connect you with a wide range of people around the world instantly.  You get to know them because you regularly see what they are thinking and learn their views on current events.

If you follow Amy Post, you will live a successful run in Twitterdom and will be blessed by interesting followers.  If not -- well, they don't call it "TWITter" for nothing . . .

Why talk to the business press?

An interesting thing happened today in the early part of a session on upleveling the message that we conducted with a company that has a very complex story that is far away from the consumer, but who owns its market segment globally and is delivering great results in spite of the current economic concerns. The CEO challenged me and my training partner with the question: "Who is the audience for these messages?  Because I really don't care if the U.S. business press covers this story. Not sure I even care about the analysts, as so few of them get this. I don't really see the connection between talking with the business press and driving actual revenue. The tech press I get."

A successful public company CEO with a growth story who isn't seeing value in talking with the business press. Interesting. 

Since our messaging session was for multiple stakeholders, including potential investors, we were able to convince the CEO that nailing the core messaging and making it both accessible and relevant will help all of these stakeholders pay more attention to hear the broader and deeper story of this successful company. The actual workshop went very well and the CEO found value in helping his team learn to be consistent and concise about telling the company story. He particularly valued the ability to drill them on pulling the great information they were providing in mock interviews on trends back to the value the company provided, as well as making it crystal clear the global revenue mix.

His concerns about the business press were intriguing and we probed on these later. He had had some very bad experiences with business media. One involved a local business reporter who took a lot of his time and then included the company only in a short mention. The lack of knowledge of the segment or willingness to do enough homework to be a competent interviewer really bothered him in this experience. Another time at a former company, he felt burned by a national magazine's story that, in his view, minimized his technology offering with a clever headline. The fact that his picture was prominently displayed did not impress this CEO, as he's firmly in the no-cult-of-personality camp. He also chafed at the long amount of time it took to do the photo shoot that resulted in the picture. In summary, he didn't see the value of even bothering to talk with people who don't seem interested or knowledgeable enough to warrant his time and he would rather spend his time closing deals than educating the uninformed.

We were able to get past this skepticism today to accomplish our mission. However, it's a warning shot for the technology business press that a CEO from a company that is doing well against the trends has written them off. And I really don't think Dan Lyons' blog listing this week that tracks anyone who makes any statements that the downturn is good for their business is going to help matters. Humor is great and I was one of the biggest fans of Dan's FakeSteveJobs blog. And I understand his zeal about exposing ridiculous or bogus claims. I don't like gimmicks either. Good PR people don't and we counsel our clients not to use them. But I just wish that the business press would focus on the news -- and if someone honestly is bucking the trend, that may actually be news -- rather than deciding up front that it is all a crock. It may help me spend less time apologizing for the media next time I meet with this CEO.

Blogging is not going away

On Monday, a blogger for Valleywag wrote a post on a Wired blog declaring that blogging is dead (or in Valleywag speak, "blogging is so 2004"). I enjoyed in particular reading the reaction to the post, and yesterday afternoon was asked for an opinion on it by one of our clients.I thought I'd share that response here.

Of course, the article has generated voluminous commentary and reaction, all via blogging. The fact that he wrote this article in a blog post and it has generated so much reaction in other blogs pretty much debunks his argument that blogs are dead. I agree with much of the common reaction, which is that his argument is shallow because the evidence he uses is that Jason Calacanis retired from blogging and Robert Scoble uses Twitter and Friendfeed more now than his own blog. If Calacanis and Scoble don't value blogging anymore, then it must be dead! I don't think so.

I also think that this blog post is a classic example of link bait. Write a provocative article that blogging is dead, extol the virtues of all the currently most popular shiny new objects, and you’re sure to get thousands of other people linking to you to increase views, upon which most professional bloggers’ pay is based. Many people fell for it. I'm with Seamus McCauley and won't link to it either.

Blogging is not going away. It still will have a place for companies, in particular because they can serve their own buying communities very well with thoughtful, informative content related to the problems they are trying to solve. For B2B companies, these audiences are targeted and fairly well-defined and don’t need to worry about competing with Huffington Post or TechCrunch or even Valleywag for eyeballs. The other point is that the use of social media technologies is not an either/or scenario.  Blogging has its purpose for longer-form communication, whereas Twitter, Facebook and Flickr serve different purposes. They should be used in a very complementary and cohesive way, as we do with our blog (see the FriendFeed widget in the left sidebar).

This is a discussion that is sure to continue. What do you think?

PR/IR Podcast: It's all about "the R," part one

A couple of weeks ago I ran into two colleagues from Conway Communications at a NIRI event focused on communicating in an uncertain market. A portfolio manager and a veteran Investor Relations Officer offered us their perspectives -- the most notable of which was a comment that "the R" in IR is more important than ever right now.

I was discussing this with Mary Conway and Jane McCahon right after the event and we thought it would be interesting to explore ways we think our clients can foster "the R" in this time when most people would like to run for cover.

Previously Mary and Jane participated in a podcast with us to discuss the synergies between the IR and PR functions and how each can better work together to understand the nuances of each audience as well as the executives we support. In this two-part podcast, Mary, Jane and I discuss some specific Do's and Don'ts about communicating during the financial turbulence, with a focus on being transparent and accessible.

I welcome your feedback. And certainly if there are any other areas that bridge IR and PR that you'd like us to address in the future, let me know.

As always, you can subscribe to the podcast series through the Podcast Ready button in the right sidebar, or via iTunes.

Agency Relevance in a Communications 2.0 World

I recently moderated a panel on global communications, which we hosted at the Zilker Botanical Garden in Austin, Texas.  Here’s a link to some of the details.

There were some good questions raised by an audience member:

What is the relevancy of agencies in today’s world of communications?  Has social media and the contraction of the traditional media landscape made agencies vulnerable? How necessary is an agency? Can all PR and communications be handled in-house?

Clearly everything about public relations, the media and communications is changing at warp speed. With these changes come the necessity to continually learn and reinvent ourselves as professional communicators. Some will adapt, while others may not.  For those that do, there always will be a role to play as a valued partner to companies in crafting and executing their communications. Here are just a few reasons why agencies will continue to matter.

• Balancing out the Kool-aid factor. Regardless of the environment or new tools, companies can always benefit from third-party perspective. It’s human nature to think your child is the smartest, cutest one out there. A seasoned agency team can help you see and understand not just the opportunities, but the challenges you will face in getting audiences to hear your message and care about your product or company.
• Benefiting from the success or mistakes of others. A huge advantage agencies have is that they work with so many companies. They’ve seen what works and what doesn’t. This knowledge is invaluable in helping you determine the right blend of social media strategy and tactics that will yield the best return.
• Scale and reach. In a world where determining who matters to you changes so quickly and is increasingly harder to find, having a partner who’s constantly out there searching for them and engaging with them on your behalf is critical. Further, agencies have the tools and services that help them keep abreast of the latest developments regarding media and influencer beats, assignments editorial focus, etc.  This leads me to the next point...
• The serendipity factor. I see this every day. Because agencies are working with so many clients and constantly communicating with influencers, they have the ability to uncover and share opportunities with each other and their clients so much faster than any single individual or small internal communications team can.
• Speed and focus. In my experience, an internal corporate communications person’s responsibilities are usually very different from those of an agency professional. Typically, the internal person has to manage relationships with many internal constituencies including product management, marketing, sales and customer service.  They are responsible for creating content and often own internal communications as well.  At the end of the day, what percentage of their time is truly focused on managing media and influencer relations, staying on top of breaking developments, pitching new stories and developing relationships?

There are many more I could list, but then again, that’s just one person’s perspective. Tell me what you think.